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DEPOSITS. They are where nearly every solar horror story starts.
A consumer regulator in South Australia published complaint figures this week covering ten months of one retailer. Ninety-four complaints. Forty-one of them were customers who paid a deposit and never got their installation in a reasonable time. Not faulty panels. Not a dud inverter. Money in, nothing on the roof.
That ratio is worth sitting with, because it is not unusual. When a solar business gets into trouble, the deposits are what customers lose first.
So here is the honest version, including the part that does not flatter us.
Deposit protections
- In Western Australia a deposit on home building work of $7,500 or more is capped at 6.5% by statute, under the Home Building Contracts Act 1991. It is a legal ceiling, not a guideline.
- Below $7,500 the Act does not reach, and Consumer Protection recommends paying no more than 10%.
- Of 94 complaints against one South Australian retailer over ten months, 41 were deposits paid with no installation.
- Four checks before you pay: what the deposit is for, what triggers a refund in writing, who the money actually goes to, and the installer's credentials on the public registers rather than the badges on the website.
- Since 1 October 2025, an installer has to hold NETCC Approved Seller status to be accredited for the WA Residential Battery Scheme.
- Pay by card where you can. A chargeback path is a second option a bank transfer does not give you.
We ask for a deposit too
Any installer ordering equipment for your specific job asks for one. Panels, an inverter, a battery, mounting rail for your roof pitch: that stock gets bought and it gets bought against your order. A business that asks for nothing up front is not automatically safer, it is just carrying the risk somewhere else, and eventually that shows up in the price or the timeline.
A small deposit is not proof of anything either. What matters is what the money is doing and what happens if the job does not proceed.
WA deposit limits
Most buyers do not know this, and it is the single most useful fact on this page. Under the Home Building Contracts Act 1991, a deposit on a home building work contract worth $7,500 or more is capped at 6.5%. Not a guideline. A statutory ceiling.
Western Australian Consumer Protection applies this to solar directly: at $7,500 or more the contract must be in writing, the deposit is capped at 6.5%, and progress payments can only be for work actually performed or materials already supplied. Below $7,500 the Act does not reach, and Consumer Protection recommends paying no more than 10%.
The full picture, including how the other states compare and what to do if you have already paid more, is in what a solar deposit is legally allowed to be.
Four checks before paying
What the deposit is for. Ask directly. Is it securing equipment, covering design and application work, or holding a spot in a schedule? A business that can answer that in one sentence has thought about it. One that says "it's just standard" has not.
What triggers a refund, in writing. Not what someone says on the phone. The contract should say what happens if the site inspection finds the roof cannot take the array, if Western Power will not approve the export you were quoted, or if you change your mind inside the cooling-off period. If the contract is silent on all three, that silence is the answer.
Who the money goes to. Check the business name on the quote against the name on the bank details. Check both against the ABN. Trading names change, and a business that has been through several of them in a few years is a business worth a second look. The ABN Lookup site does this for free.
Their current credentials, on the registers. Not the badges on the website. A NETCC Approved Seller certificate proves status on the day it was printed and nothing since, so check the Approved Seller register instead. Check the installer's accreditation with Solar Accreditation Australia. Check the electrical contractor licence with the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety here in WA. All three are public and all three are current.
Pay by card if you can
Bank transfer is fine when everything goes right. When it does not, a credit card gives you a chargeback path that a transfer does not. It is not a guarantee and there are time limits, but it is a second option, and second options are the whole point of this article.
If you have already paid and the installer has gone quiet, do not sit on it waiting for a callback. Consumer Protection WA takes complaints, and your card issuer has a clock running. Both work better at week three than at month six.
Checking a low quote
If one quote is thousands below everything else you have collected, the deposit is the part to worry about, not the panels. A price that low usually means the business is either buying work at a loss to keep cash moving, or it has cut something you cannot see from the driveway. Neither ends well for the person who paid first.
Get three quotes. Check the registers on all three. Then pay the deposit to the one that could answer the four questions above without going quiet.
The same care applies to the packaged fixed-price offers now running in Perth, where the questions to ask before the deposit are set out in our note on fixed-price solar and battery packages.